SCB agrees to compensate families of all dead victims and the injured from chemical leak accident

Siam Commercial Bank has pledged to take responsibility for compensating families of the eight dead victims and seven injured from chemical leaks at the basement of SC Park building Sunday night.

Initial police investigation findings have faulted the contractor tasked with upgrading the fire extinguishing system at the high security room for storing important documents of the banks for being accountable for causing the accident.

The accident took place as workers of the contractor accidentally triggered the old fire extinguishing system to let off FM-200 fire suppression chemical which sucks oxygen in the air.

Police suspected that the workers died because there was no oxygen in the basement where they were trapped.

Pol Lt-Gen Sanit Mahathavorn, acting commissioner of metropolitan police, said the contractor would be summoned for interrogation and might face charge of negligence causing deaths to other people.

Meanwhile, a chemist at the Engineering Institute of Thailand, Mr Veerachai Putthawong, clarified in his Facebook page that that the fire extinguisher which exploded did not contain hydrogen but pyrogen which suppresses oxygen in the air.